Tional

Can you please fix the messaging provided by the game when claiming territories? Because it's not accurate, not useful, cannot be clicked on to determine which hex/construct it's referring to, and suggests that dynamic constructs can also be requisitioned. Including dynamic constructs that are no longer in the hex. "Scan" and "temp1050" are not static constructs. They're dynamic constructs. And they're not in the hex. The territory is not named scan, or temp1050. The territories do have names, but those aren't the names. And I can't find out what territory the notification is referring to because those aren't the names.
 
 
 

Can you please fix the messaging provided by the game when claiming territories? Because it's not accurate, not useful, cannot be clicked on to determine which hex/construct it's referring to, and suggests that dynamic constructs can also be requisitioned. Including dynamic constructs that are no longer in the hex. "Scan" and "temp1050" are not static constructs. They're dynamic constructs. And they're not in the hex. The territory is not named scan, or temp1050. The territories do have names, but those aren't the names. And I can't find out what territory the notification is referring to because those aren't the names.
 
 
 

You realise this is actually happening, right? And I'm just endorsing the decision NQ has already made. Try to keep up.

There's some debate over on Reddit about the merits of forcing abandonment of tiles for inactive players. 
 
Here's my list of reasons it's a GREAT idea:
 
(1) NO MORE SKY GARBAGE: Before the advent of the space elevator many players built large towers to get to space, now an endless hazard when flying around. As unsub tiles are claimed and their towers demolished, we can get rid of the sky garbage. Like this monstrosity that has been left abandoned for a year:
 

 
(2) NEW ORE: Randomly unlocking tiles when a player's claim expires - not just now but forever - means new ore deposits will open up indefinitely, allowing new players access to mining. Currently, rich deposits are already tied up by those who moved fast after Demeter.
 
(3) ACCESS TO MARKET: New players getting around in speeders need proximity to market - much more than advanced players with many large ships. Right now a new player can't get a tile close to market to set up their base on most worlds - esp. Alioth. Opening up tiles near market will greatly improve gameplay for new players.
 
(4) MOST UNSUBS ARE GONE FOR GOOD: Folks keep saying that losing tiles will stop unsubs coming back. I've contacted several unsubs on Discord to try to negotiate cleaning up the death traps they left behind, or to allow me to expand my base into an adjacent tile. None were interested, even if I offered to pay their sub for them. One said he'd come back only if I paid him a large sum of money in Starbase. They've had plenty of warning. More press and comms than any other change before incl. Twitter, Reddit, Discord, forums, email notifications for a month, plus independent coverage:
 
https://massivelyop.com/2021/11/19/dual-universes-demeter-update-will-introduce-territory-upkeep-costs/
https://mmos.com/news/dual-universe-will-be-taxing-territories-come-the-demeter-update
https://game-news24.com/2021/11/24/dual-universe-s-new-demeter-update-has-automatic-mining-land-taxes-and-visual-improvements/
https://www.mmorpg.com/news/dual-universe-adding-territory-upkeep-fees-to-prevent-land-grabs-maintain-economy-2000123692
 
Anyone who wanted to mothball their stuff has done it by now, or had friends or an org in the game to do it for them. The current and new player experience is more important than wishful thinking on returning unsubs. 
 
(5) LOOT AS PVE: Rolling the dice on a paid territory claim in exchange for possible loot is the closest thing we've had to PVE since the old puzzle ruins and shipwrecks - that we haven't seen any of in forever. For those who like buried treasure, there's the extra fun that they'll need to dig for some of it as well:
 
 
I wish all those PVEers who want to go dumpster diving good fortune, because...
 
(6) NO WINDFALL RICHES: Concerns that looting will create a windfall of resources forgets the fact you have to pay for the territory unit and tile claim. And that we're only talking about statics, not ships which contain the bulk of valuable elements. Aside from ore left in containers looting won't bring big windfalls and at current prices it will often be less than the cost of claiming the tile - making it a risky enterprise. I say go for it, and again, good luck. This could become a long-term pass time as new tiles keep opening up in future.
 
Personally, I think the unsub purge is brilliant. I can't wait.
 
What do you think?
 
[EDIT: With NQs 11th hour back-flip on this - again - just hours after this post, I’m out. ~1000hrs in since alpha, I’m done. This was the only good thing about Demeter and they stealth-nerfed it. It’s a bad call, but worse, we can’t trust a word NQ say. Bye folks.] 

NQ-Nyzaltar
Community Manager  1.3k Location: France Alpha: Yes Posted Friday at 10:45 AM Greetings Noveans,
 
Upon popular request from players, we will be holding a live, written Q&A session with the Novaquark Game Design team on Wednesday, December 1st  at 15:00 UTC. 
 
NQ-Kyrios, NQ-Entropy and NQ-Wave will be answering player questions during one hour on a dedicated channel on Discord.
 

Thanks for doing the Q&A in discord, it was too short though and you guys were picking and choosing too many questions.

A couple you missed:
How closely is NQ monitoring the game in regards to the tiles claimed, hotsots and distribution of the ores?  Are you concerned at all that most of the valuable hotspots are already claimed and future players will not have a chance or own a tile that is worth much, especially if they want to start up industry.  Think 3 months, 3 years, etc. As ore prices drop, we have the bots at 25q, but this used to be 12.5q, and even that is a finite amount, once the bots are cleared out, ore can, and has, fallen to abysmal prices. Lastly, on the Mining Units, can we get a status screen, showing a list of all MUs that we have, time of last calibration, etc.  No one really likes playing spreadsheet simulator except accountants, and I don't even play one of those on TV, but it's a necessary evil right now. Thanks again
 

Q1: What does this do? (See attached) I've seen so many theories on Discord, but no confirmation from anyone in blue. Is this for the minigame surface ore spawn, or for the mining unit production rate, or some other thing?
 
Q2: Can you please provide the math used to determine the production rate as a tooltip/hover-over/something? The interface leaves more questions than answers.
 
Q3: Since Mining Unit charges are linked to a character, not a machine, can you please provide a way to find out how many charges you have, and when you'll have the next one, without having to go find a mining unit to click on?
 
Thank you,
Tional
 
 

We need some Quality of Life tweaks for several of the UI.  Is this on the roadmap anywhere?

A big one for me and it's a general use case, why was the right ctrl key not used on US Ansi keyboards?  Can this be added?
 
Map Screen
Map screen has several draw backs.  It's very slow when you have a lot of territories and constructs, taking up to 10 seconds sometimes to load.   When clicking on an owned territory, the Owners name is cut off, you already have that window set to scroll, please put in a wrap-around to display the full name. Searching?  Would be a huge boon in the Map screen. Remember a previous selection, like if you have scan results shown, go back to that if possible. Allow scan results to be layered on display along with other tiles, they are a unique color, but allow us to show both owned tiles and scan results please. Filtering?  Even just using the drop down at the bottom right for the Org, allowing us to only display territories for the org that is picked would help. Constructs, give us the ability to filter on one type. Mining Unit Calibration
Show us our total calibrations available without having to go to a MU please. When calibrating multiple MU's, it's hard to keep up with the bonus harvest ore and easy to forget.  If it's dark or under water, very hard to find by looking.  Log that info for us please as a QoL improvement, a notification or just a log drop down similar to the org wallet transaction log. not really MU, but related, once you go harvest the bonus rocks, they are named differently than the others, Aluminium vs Bauxite like the 20L ones. RDMS Screen
In the RDMS screen, again, names are cut off for orgs. Why is the org list randomized?  Let us search/sort please. Allow searching of a TAG, drop downs are only good for a short list. Name sort seems to be buggy, sometimes it works, but most of the time, it seems to sort based on a group based on age and I cannot get several orgs to sort correctly.
  Thanks!
 

Do you really think that a completely random mining calibration mini game grind is FUN ?
 
 
Why, if this was a performance improvement do we still get pending ops when transforming the surface?
 
 

how exactly does this talent work?

Ore Pools are way off it seems for outer planets. Consider we can run multi scanners popping off 19 scanners every 20 minutes or so so scanning a hundred tiles is not unfeasible for an evening. As a result planets that had t2/t3/t4 are readily apparent as no longer producing, even following the "hot spot" and heat map methods of searching.
 
Ore's are supposed to be more prolifant the further away from Alioth by original design. Now there is no encouragement to populate further nor build fantastic structures, player made markets.
 
Will you resort the ore pools. Is Are some planets like Locobus supposed to have a 200 ore pool limit? It seems off. It is problematic not to be able to afford warp cells or fuel to start production for this created problem and no new player would be enticed to leave Alioth and Sanctuary with the current implementation.
 
We need to know ASAP so that we can realistically pick and place our MU's with proper supply chain logistics in mind. Currently ore availability on some locations completely invalidates even having a outpost at that location. Is it good to pull the rug from under the player base more with unknowing?
 
Thanks in advance for your reply.
 
Fallen Angel Since 2016

Greetings Noveans,
 
Upon popular request from players, we will be holding a live, written Q&A session with the Novaquark Game Design team on Wednesday, December 1st  at 15:00 UTC. 
 
NQ-Kyrios, NQ-Entropy and NQ-Wave will be answering player questions during one hour on a dedicated channel on Discord. We encourage you to prepare your questions in advance, and discuss the hot topics that you have in mind in this thread, with the following caveats:
 
They will not be discussing future plans and upcoming features, as we are planning an update to the roadmap early 2022. The Game Design team will only answer questions in their field. So, questions about performance, bugs or the business of Novaquark will not be answered in this Q&A, for example.  The focus of the Q&A should ideally be on the latest release, Demeter, and any gameplay-related questions you may have following its release. Other questions on existing features may be answered, but Demeter-related questions will be prioritized. Our 3 game designers are very excited to answer your questions, but it goes without saying that the tone should remain courteous and respectful. It is in the interest of the community that these events, which we hope to organize more of in the future, stay well-behaved and that our employees feel a positive connection to our players.   
We realize that not everyone will be able to attend the event, so we encourage you to pass along your questions to your fellow Noveans. Pending unforeseen technical difficulties, our intention is to ensure that the content of the Q&A stays accessible for a few days after the event, so that absentees can still read it through. 
 
We can’t wait to hear your questions!
 
The Novaquark team.
 

Please understand, this is what I found on PTS during the two test weekends:
On just about every tile I had scans for or scanned during the test on Alioth, Madis, Thades and Sanctuary had all four T1 ores, none of T2+, but I heard from others that some of their tiles did have T2+. So the assumption there is that it's rare. On Madis-Thades-Alioth each tile had 500-600 L/h total across the four T1 ores, each ore ranging from 5-450 L/h. Sanctuary had ~410 L/h across all four T1 ores. The moons other moons I looked at had only two T1 ores each, one being dominant (350-450 L/h) and a secondary T1 ore (50-100 L/h), per tile 450-500 L/h total.
 
One of the other planets I mentioned (not saying which one) had on each tile I had scanned the same T1 ore (5-50 l/h), the same T2 ore (110-225 L/h) and the same T3 ore (10-80 L/h), with an average of ~250 L/h average per tile. Other players hinted at some tiles having T4+ ores. On the moons of that planet I found that it had only one T1 ore, the same one on all tiles scanned (300 L/h). On another moon I found the same T2 ore on every tile (90-200 L/h), with the same T1 ore (110-240 L/h) with ~300 L/h total per tile.
 
Also keep in mind that Alioth has almost 260.000 tiles, it's moons (outside of sanctuary) another 29.000 tiles. Madis/Thades with their moons, another 83.000 tiles. The outer planets another almost 440.000 tiles. Over 800.000 tiles total. If every player wanted to auto mine with max skills and daily attendance, the current setup can support almost 25.000 accounts. But not everyone is going to mine with max skills or optimally, so way more then 25k players can be supported.
 
On PTS the safezones around the planets were intact, just the space between them is pvp space. Moving ore from one planet to the other can be safely done via warping, just imagine what the warpcell cost would be for 1.920.000 L Hematite... Slow-boating it between planets takes Time=Quanta and you risk pirates attacking you. Selling your T1 ore on outer planets when you have to cover your warpcell costs is not going to be profitable, especially when the competition is going to slow-boat it... BUT NQ has stated from the beginning (KS and Beta) that those safe zones will eventually be gone, I'm just not seeing that happening anytime soon.
 
I have no magic window into developer minds, I'm still working at pulling NQ personnel through Internet lines... ? But I suspect that from a game design perspective the chosen changes will not live in a vacuum, they'll have consequences. What those consequences will be might be very different from what they and we imagine they'll be. Partly because NQ might not have shared all plans, changes, partly because they can't accurately predict their players reactions ingame to those changes.
 
From my perspective, I see only Sanctuary as a truly persistent safe place for your resources. Any other place will eventually be either in a pvp zone (in a greater or lesser extent) or will be taxed (I doubt space stations will always be exempt, even if NQ currently assures us that they won't be taxed). I don't know if you're familiar with EVE, but everything there is pretty much a consumable. Your ships are just ammunition, you'll loose them eventually, so don't fly what you can't afford to loose. I see DU winding up there eventually, after many, many years of further development. That doesn't mean that until then we can't use/exploit those planets/moons. We can build a city there, I suspect that it'll be safe for years. And when that changes, I expect we'll have a warning way before hand and we would be able to pull back the resources we absolutely don't want to loose. But why worry about what might happen in years?

Since I have now given up a lot of territories and had to tear down massive amounts of buildings and outposts in order to escape the tax pressure, I am only interested in one thing about the whole new system:
 
-> Will space stations remain permanently free of any taxes or obligations for players in DualUniverse?

I would just like to keep building. No obligation for taxes or obligations to always log in, even on holiday or in hospital/rehab. 
Please, at least leave the space stations alone for peaceful builders.
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I am not a huge fan of Demeter patch and the new coming features. But well, Demeter it's like the winter, you can hate it but it will still come.

Here is my feedback:

First you really need to improve communication:
I can understand that wiping the scans will make everyone at the same level on Demeter, but you can't say 1 month ago "Old scan are valid" and then flip your mind and change that.
We are playing a lot of hours by week and making plan on the future. Like in all MMO I have played, when a patch comes you prepare yourself for it. People have taken time to scan planet to get more scan to be prepare for the patch. 

One way of dealing with that could have be. "we are wiping scans older than x months".
Doing that you are preventing people that have prepare the patch to have loose all their time and for people that have very old scans, it's very easy to justify the removing of them.

Ore extraction should be more rewarding:
Some people were complaining about mining, I can understand that. But in other hand, because it was boring for some people it was rewarding for some others.
I lost the count on how many mega-node I have extracted, but every mega-node I have pulled out was very rewarding. 
First you had to scan for it and finding one was giving me a lot of joy every time.
Then when you finally mined it you were happy to have a very clean hole and a lot of ore in your pocket.

My new gameplay will be only pressing 2-5 buttons and waiting.... and waiting again. 
So every litter of ore will worth nothing in term of reward. 

New gameplays are more and more boring:
When a patch come in a game, you expect to have more content in terms of things interesting to do.

On patch 0.23:
You have introduce the schematics and it had a huge impact on the players. In term of gameplay it was not a new content, it's a restriction on current content. 
And with the exploits that some people had access (cheap schematics), you have added a huge gab between some players.

On patch 0.25:
You have introduce the mission system. First I was thinking, great it will add some content. But it's turned to be boring as hell.
Taking your container, pressing you key auto-pilot and waiting for 3h and thanks to the PvP (content made by player), we were able to kill some haulers. But you have stopped that also, by saying that using a spy on a ship was illegal without giving any alternative to PvPer to track ship in long distance.
And with the VR "exploit" you have let people get so many money that now the game is totally unbalanced.

On patch 0.26:
You have introduce asteroid mining and PvP shield. Again, first I was enthusiast with asteroid mining. But after having tested it I was very disappointed. It takes a lot of time, for a very tiny reward.
By doing that you are restricting the asteroid mining to people that can play more than 3h straight. 

And PvP shield have introduce so many bug that PvP was not playable for many weeks. And now that they work, it has reduce the creativity of people when it comes to build PvP ship. We are back to the cube meta (well now it's a rectangle).

On patch 0.27:
You are removing ground mining by replacing that with an afk mining.

Exploit should be fixed faster:
On every game you will have exploits, but the good game company try to fix them fast.

You should play more the game:
When we are watching the QA, many things that you say are disconnected from what game is. And you know should be more invested in what happening in your game. A good exemple is Sesch not knowing who Gottchar is.
If you were playing more the game you would see what people are doing, what they are expecting, etc...
Like in PvP, there is no way that you have done PvP. You would have change that directly.

Some positivism:
- Lately, it seems that you are listening a little bit more the community. That's a good point.
- You have done an awesome job on some relooking, making the game more beautiful.
- You have fixed some big exploit (stacking, warp)


Kind regards

The trajectory so far again emphasizes NQ's general culture of hubris and an overwhelming lack of humility. 
 
Here (yet again) we have a lot of players telling them why this isn't going to work well...that the idea is right, but the implementation is very wrong. 
 
IMO, this will go live pretty close to "as-is" because NQ doesn't believe players have any useful feedback. The last PTS update underscores that idea -- very few substantial tweaks around the balance of new features. 
 
We've seen this path before with 0.23.
 
Back then, they released a statement defending their changes and talking about how players just don't understand how to play their game. How their opinions were simply wrong. 
 
NQ struggles with tech. They struggle with customer service. They certainly struggle with design...but they also struggle with humility and being open-minded enough to see the flaws in their bizarre "play it by ear" design style. 
 
They promised that they would improve around communication, but they didn't put any real effort into it. They just don't believe feedback is important.
 
A lot of pride for a game that's spent over 7 years in the alpha stage...and still struggles with really fundamental issues that make the game look like it is still early in development.
 
The new CEO needs to make some real changes. Frankly, they need to fire some people with too much hubris and not enough talent and shift more resources to design and development -- whatever development path they are on, it hasn't been working for a long time. 

Can I have your stuff? Oh, right, I can. I just have to wait for the taxes to eat your hexes.

Can I have your stuff?
 
Oh yeah, I can. I just have to wait for the taxes to eat your hexes.
 
Not sure what numbers you're working with, as the numbers you provided have no context, but if you're selling warp beacons and making 23,000 warp cells a week, you can afford 112M a week in taxes.
 

I think you're doing it wrong. You can absolutely claim 3 hexes, deploy 3 static cores, and deploy 3 mining units. Then calibrate each of them (using charges), and run them. All 3 will get adjacency bonuses, and all 3 will produce ore.
 
This is why we have a test server, so you can test the functionality and see how it works before it goes live.
 

Enjoy my stuff... you and the other 8 players left should have a wonderful time with it for the time the game has left.  Too few players don't pay the bills at NQ.  This game was on borrowed time as it was.

Thank you for your holier-than-thou review of my post.
 
My favourite parts were:
"...frankly a cheap shot..." Ignorance of subjective language "...an attempt at firefighting..." If you would like to put words (or anything else) in my mouth in future, please let me know 48 hours in advance. I'm a dinner and flowers kinda guy.
 

Fixed those for you.
 
Sure, I'm not speaking for so-called veterans. I'm speaking for myself, my org, my org-mates, and all of the former org-mates that quit when 0.23 dropped.
 
Since then, they 'fixed' the price of schematics from their horrifically flawed introductory price scheme, then broke them for 2 hours, then fixed them again. They added missions, which devalued currency to almost meaningless, while adding PvP content at the same time. They added asteroids, which provided PvP content for a portion of the server, and provided PvP victims for another portion. And now they're adding automated miners so we can finally stop playing dig-dug, except on asteroids with too-small nodes.
 
The game has gotten better since 0.23, but as I said, my friends won't be back. So I want their stuff. It's really that simple. And I'll be able to get it, if I'm there first.

Please read the patch notes.

Please read the patch notes.

Sure, and people fear change. I get that. I'm a fan of the changes, your mileage may vary.
 
As for the people who helped fund the game, I'm paying for my two subscriptions, so I'm helping to fund the game. And so many of my friends paid for theirs, so they helped fund the game. Then they all quit when 0.23 came out because it was an unmitigated disaster.
 
The game has gotten better since then, and continues to do so. They won't be back. So their territories should be freed up for others to use. It's really that simple. As for their constructs, and the contents inside them... NQ hasn't made clear how that part's going to work yet. We shall see.